Neurospasta
by Cyanide and Insomnia
Summary: One-shot. Thrust couldn't stop thinking about what had happened on Titan. More specifically, what Astrotrain had done. Something hadn't been right. But it wasn't the actions that made no sense, it was the mech. He had acted like a completely different mech. A more dangerous mech. A true Decepticon. Perhaps even a Decepticon leader.


**A/N: **The episode "The God Gambit" is very easily headcanon-exploitable, and currently four story ideas have sprung up from those events. This is one of them, obviously, and the others may follow. This one just focuses on Astrotrain's conflicting characterization.

.. it's probably been done before. But this one is full of swearing. Because of reasons.

There may be a second "chapter" - that is, a sort of sequel drabble exploring Starscream's take on this - uploaded here for convenience, but for now this is just a single one-shot, so thanks in advance for reading and reviewing and all that jazz.

(This also gives you guys a slightly better taste of my Astrotrain because the last thing posted is outdated and bad now, and pretty soon there will be MORE TRAIN.)

* * *

Something hadn't been right.

It had been a few days since the mission on Titan, and though he probably should have had better things to do, Thrust had volunteered to help refine what remained of the pitiful smattering of energy crystals the Decepticons had obtained.

Refining was all about simple body movements and repetition, after all, leaving the processor free to wander. Despite popular belief, he did indeed have a processor, and today was one of those rare occasions where he didn't want to let it wander so much as relentlessly run it through its paces, forcing it to replay files of events in his memory banks bit by bit, frame by frame, in the hopes of figuring out what the hell was wrong.

He couldn't stop thinking about the Titan mission.

More specifically, the driving force behind and throughout the mission, the triple-changer known as Astrotrain.

Even more specifically, what Astrotrain had done.

It wasn't as if any of his actions had been necessarily reprehensible by Decepticon standards, by any means. Pretending to be a god, terrorizing organics, trying to blow up Autobots, pretty normal stuff.

But it was the mech who had done these things that was wrong.

It was a piece of the puzzle that didn't fit any of the holes. A puzzle piece from a completely different box.

Though admittedly he'd only worked with the massive mech for a short time before coming to join the main Decepticon forces on Earth, he knew for a fact he was harmless. He may have been a thick-built brick of metal muscle, larger and heavier than any of them besides the gestalts, and he did know how to use his bulk when he wanted to, but despite his build and strength he was content to keep his head down and stay out of the constant violent thrashing of the ever-changing Decepticon hierarchy even though he was at the bottom of the pile. By all means, he should have been the first mech to challenge his lowly position, but he never did.

He had about as much bloodlust as a newborn sparkling, to be honest, and he never really bothered to convince anyone otherwise. He'd rather convince you to go drinking with him, like a half-wired fraternity mech that never quite heard last call. A big-ass drunken party machine.

So to see this weak-sparked low-rank _nobody_ suddenly and disturbingly easily seize power like that, to see him calmly threaten - and attack - a commanding officer as though their positions were reversed, not to mention seeing an oddly familiar cruel glint in his optics as he commanded an organic to ritually eviscerate another for his pleasure and in his name.. something was definitely not right.

It was as if he was watching a completely different mech.

A mech who was not above using that bulk and that mass more than once in a blue moon, a mech who would crush his helm like a damned organic grape if he were to even think of questioning his command - and that went double for much more outspoken traitors.

A mech who would gladly and eagerly bathe in the blood of his enemies and his weaker-sparked allies, spilled by his own hands and the hands of those who were drawn to follow him as if magnetized.

A true Decepticon.

A Decepticon _leader._

All of a sudden everything clicked into place.

Well, less of a click, and more a horrifying crash that promptly put a stop to both his thoughts and the mindless repetitive motions of his body. Distantly he heard someone order him to get back to work, you slacker, you've only got one cube left, and he numbly obeyed as he tried to pull his processor back together.

It made sense, somehow, that horrible realization. The constant re-assertion that he was _in control _in a stilted, weird tone. The nonchalant, almost practiced attack on the SIC. How he had seized control so quickly and so easily. The sudden instinctive, spark-twisting fear that had turned Thrust into a damned coward at the same time as drawing him to this new frightening, powerful persona.

Something had not been right at all.

But the puzzle wasn't complete, not until he had brought this theory to the source.

* * *

He found Astrotrain in the rec room, leaning against the wall by the counter, hunched over a cube of shuttle-grade highgrade with a broad hand to his helm and a more normal-looking grimace on his faceplates.

A slight flicker of that instinctive, submissive fear re-emerged as he approached, but he ignored it, stopping about a meter away from the massive mech and not moving one mini-inch until the other finally quit peering into his drink in order to half-squint, half-scowl down at him.

"The hell do you want?" The shuttle grunted, any trace of hostility in his tone easily overshadowed by clear pain. "Make it quick, my head feels like somebody shoved it into the trash compactor again. You'd think it'd fuckin' _stop _after a few days but noooo."

Thrust barely resisted the urge to roll his optics at the other mech's melodramatic suffering. He could mock him later. "Shut up n' answer me something. How much do you remember of Titan?"

The triple-changer had been about to take another long swig of the glowing cube in his free hand, and at the question he stopped, fixing him with a much more quizzical look for a moment before giving a dismissive little snort and going right back to shoving his nose into the metaphorical trough.

"Dude, what kind of a stupid question is that? I was there, _of course _I remember." He said when he finally came back up for air. "I chased Cosmos, shot his fat aft down, and then we found some crystals and stuff."

The Coneheaded Seeker narrowed his optics and grabbed the cube straight out of his hand, forcing him to look at him without distraction. "Uh-huh. And stuff. How much do you remember actually doing on Titan? Do you even remember the 'stuff'?"

"Is this some kind of interrogation?" The larger mech stepped back, wincing slightly. "I chased Cosmos, shot his aft down... then.. then we.. fuck.."

"It's not there, is it?"

Astrotrain fell silent, tightening his grip a bit on his helm as though that would do something to fix it.

"Look, this shit happens all the time. It's gotta be in there, it's just glitched to hell." He muttered after a long moment, eyeing what was left of his cube before his optics flickered nervously back to the smaller mech. "I know we went to Titan and I know I did.. something. I came back with a bunch of crystals. I was there."

Thrust shook his head.

"The frag is that supposed to mean? I had to have been there!" Another, sharper wince. He may have been trying that much harder to remember. "Well okay then, smartypants, what DID happen on Titan that my glitched to hell memory banks decided not to retain?"

He told him about every last event, every action. From threatening the SIC to the to-be organic sacrifice. There may have been some biased interpretations in there, but damnit he wasn't a scientist or some namby-pamby philosopher whose words had to be filtered through clinical jargon or lofty poetry, he was going to tell it how he saw it. And he saw it pretty damn terrifying.

The longer the story went, the more nervous and confused the other mech became. Though it was clear he wasn't consciously remembering any of it, there was a brief flicker of recognition in his optics. Like thinking you saw someone you knew and forgetting it before you bothered to say anything to them. The events were simultaneously foreign and familiar to him, somehow.

When Thrust had finished filling him in, he remained silent for a long while, wordlessly reaching for his cube with a slightly trembling hand. The Seeker let him have it and let him finish it, because now he would be forced to pay attention to him - he stood between him and the dispenser, and the larger mech was clearly in no state for a fight.

"Well, shit." Was his eventual verdict, tone somewhere between awestruck and horrified. "Are you sure you're not just making things up to mess with my head while it's being snapped in half? Because I'm pretty sure I'd know if I went around throttling Seekers and telling organics to shank one another for my viewing pleasure."

"You don't know, because you weren't actually there."

Astrotrain just stared at him, quite a bit more confused.

He helpfully elaborated, giving that much of a pause for dramatic effect.

"_You _weren't there. _Megatron _was."

That confused look quickly turned into abject horror as the implications of his statement sunk in, his grip tightening almost to the point of denting the plating of his helm. Almost as if to take that section off. Take it off, open up his processor and find out just how his leader had taken complete and utter control of him.

And once again, there was that flicker of distant familiarity. Somewhere in there, far beyond the reaches of his memory, he knew.

It wasn't just a theory anymore.

It was a fact.

And that was just as terrifying as the result.


End file.
